About Frederick Abbott

Posts by Frederick Abbott:

Domain names may have substantial economic and social value. They are often the objects of dispute. There is a recent judicial trend, particularly in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, toward characterizing domain names as “property” subject to rules of sale and transfer typical of personal property. This judicial characterization identifies “alienability” as a fundamental characteristic of domain names. This sets up a real or potential conflict with jurisdictions or forums where domain names have been judicially or administratively characterized as “contract rights” based on the legal relationship between the domain name registrant and the registrar. Several recent decisions among Ninth Circuit courts applying the federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), on one side, and administrative panels applying the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), on the other, call attention to the possibility for different dispute settlement outcomes depending on whether domain names are treated as freely alienable property or contract rights incorporating various obligations on transferors and transferees. In this article, the author analyzes the legal bases used to characterize Internet domain names, and suggests that it may not be necessary to draw a line between “intangible property” and “contract rights”. Domain names may be treated as both.